FIA GT World Championship 2012

More updates from this week's Autosport, linked to Tarzaan's post above:

- The remainder of this year's calendar has been formally altered (check the first post); the GT1 and GT3 fields will be merged for the two remaining rounds to be held in Europe.
- The series will continue to run in 2013 without its FIA title.
- The same team-driver-car combinations will be allowed to compete in the "GT sprint racing" series and the Blancpain Endurance Series. The 2013 Blancpain calendar will be reduced to five rounds, with the sprint series comprising of seven non-clashing events, all save two of which will be held in Europe. The flyaways will be held in the UAE and India.
- Favourable responses from Vincent Vosse (WRT Audi) and Bernhard Muhlner (Exim Bank China Porsche).
- Of course, the plans for next year are highly provisional!

So this FIA GT1 World Championdship, that does not have any GT1s in it and cannot even surpass the 16 car minimum entry limit SRO has promised for circuit promoters, does not even go outside EUROPE this season (technically western Russia and Moscow counts as Europe). LOL

Hats off to SRO, what was already the most ridiculous season in the history of mankind turns out to be even more pathetic - if possible.

It's the championship-decider at Donington Park this afternoon. Winkelhock-Basseng (Mercedes) have a three-point lead over Bartels-Buurman (BMW). It's also going to be the final race with the "world" title, and FIA backing (if it continues at all next year).

Well, the championship seems to have been resolved in favour of Mercedes after Winkelhock and Buurman made contact at Redgate following the pitstops. Buurman went hard into a concrete wall and has been injured; Bartels stormed into the All-Inkl garage and started yelling "You are not the World Champions!" in German. The incident is under investigation, but both cars are out. The remainder of the field, eight cars, is circulating behind the safety car as the clock runs down. A sad end to a troubled year, especially as the racing had been good and clean up until this incident.

Update: the race has been red-flagged with twelve minutes still to go. The ambulance and other medical vehicles are still on the scene of the incident. Winkelhock was uninsured and appeared contrite, walking slowly towards Buurman's car before the marshals prevented him from getting closer (in order not to hamper the medical personnel). IMO the collision was Winkelhock's fault, as he leaned on the BMW as it was passing him on corner exit and pitched it into a spin.

All the Vita4One personnel were obviously furious; I don't think I've ever seen all the members of a team be so angry at the actions of another driver before.

It was reported before the live stream ended that Buurman was basically OK. On Twitter it is being reported that he has gone to hospital for a CT scan, and that there was some concern that he may have suffered a back injury. He certainly appeared to be unconscious immediately after the impact.

Which basically means they were not punished at all despite announced guilty. Jerez 1997 had a little different outcome but I don't think this case is closed.

Depends if they think it was a deliberate attempt to secure championship victory, or just rubbish driving. If it was the latter, which I feel it more likely was, then exclusion from the race is a consistent punishment - going further and docking points just so the team would lose the championship would be setting a bad precedence.

To be honest the championship is not even really legitimate anyway, since the FIA requires a world championship to be competed in on at least three continents and the GT1 series never actually left Europe.

Just thought id share the pics n vids i managed to get from the saturday track action, it the first time ive been to round of any GT series and the thing that impressed me the most was the sheer sound of these cars, the Z4 n SLS are sumthing else. Any way hope people enjoy them and any coments welcome.

Certainly looking promising with the changes, glad to see the endurance series getting retained as that is a very entertaining series and I would have thought far more enjoyable for the GT drivers than a championship like the WEC where they have to spend 6 hours dodging LMPs.